False Nutrition Information final

False Nutrition Information

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Introduction

Good nutrition is the way to good health, therefore people have been very cautious with what they choose to eat. This is especially when it comes to low fat foodstuff that are full of nutrients. Sometimes we eat certain foods thinking that they hare healthy not knowing that they are not. Due to the press freedom and the easy access to social media, people and producers have used the media for their own good and advertised their products as healthy when indeed they are not. People who have worked in these companies know the truth of what really is behind the popular food claims (Ontario, 2013). Though some of the fault falls on the producers, the FDA is also to blame because they are the ones who have been tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that consumers get quality products.

Individuals are also taking matters into their own hands and from the fact that diet relates to their health, people have become reliant on sources such as television, websites, radio, newspapers, friends, family and advertisement for information on nutrition which creates opportunities for misinformation on nutrition and health fraud. Health fraud can be defined as health claims that are misrepresented and can be due to self-proclaimed medical experts who come up with discoveries of their own like finding a magical cure be it a drug or food supplements that have not been proven to be truly working (Tasdemir & Ulas, 2015). This has created a situation where individuals cannot differentiate between fact and fiction on these nutrition information. The aim of this paper is to bring and increase awareness of people on the amount of nutrition information in the media that is false. This calls for people to be more careful and investigate these kinds of information in a scientific manner. This research paper is going to look at nutrition false information on vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 is found in plant resources

Vitamin B12 that is naturally present in some plant resource used as foods although it cannot be supplied in ample amount when one consumes these plant resources, available as a dietary supplements and added in some foods and it is soluble in water.it can also be prescribed as a medication. It exists in various forms and contains mineral cobalt and the minerals within vitamin B 12 are called cobalamins. Vitamin B 12 is needed for good red blood cell formation, DNA synthesis and neurological function. It has various functions in the body and this is why people take advantage and come up with false information about it. Several individuals opt to consume B12 as an injection or as a pill (Abdulmanea et al., 2014). Many of these who consume B12 as a pill or an injection have sworn that it really helps as they feel they have more energy and are less fatigued. A search on Google where the terms fatigue and vitamins B12 brings a lot of results which in the websites, there is suggestion that cyanocabalamin as a treatment for fatigue. Also there were issues of deficiency of vitamin B12 causing pernicious anemia which is not really true because these claims have not been proven by research which concluded that deficiency of vitamin B 12 is not associated with pernicious anemia.

Vitamin B12 is not important for overall health.

Oral B12 supplements

When B12 is taken as a pill then it is poorly absorbed because the stomach has acids which breaks down and neutralizes most of the B12 but still some portion is absorbed which is estimated to be 0.5% of what had been consumed. So, this makes it clear that consuming vitamin B12 as a pill is a waste of time and of little use. But here is the truth, orally consumed B12 supplements are easily excreted by the kidneys unless it was consumed it big amounts, which still is not harmful to the body and still it is relatively cheap.

Injectable B12 supplements

The ‘Wall Street Journal’ in January 2011, has an article which states that B12 injections should be promoted as a treatment for several things like hangovers, and means through which one can increase metabolism and shed pounds. It also stated that weight loss clinics could prescribe B12 shots to patients as part of their program (Abdulmanea et al., 2014). Furthermore the article stated that depression, fatigue, memory loss and other symptoms like flagging appetite together with balance problems are caused by deficiency of vitamin B12. The reason behind a lot of talk time on vitamin B12 shots is due to the belief of people that because the treatment reduces fatigue that people with deficiency in B12 experience, the supplement shots will pep them too. But research done by Irwin H. Rosenberg former professor in Tufts University, he told the journal that there is no conclusive evidence to prove this matter. Katherine Zeratsky a blogger and Mayo clinic nutritionist also said that unless one has a deficiency in then these injections will not have any effect on you. It is therefore clear that if one does not suffer from a deficiency in B12 then there is no reason for taking B`12 injection supplements (Chan et al., 2016). It is not like it is harmful to the body but looking at the costs incurred for these treatments though they are not that expensive is a reason for not wasting your time. People should be very careful on who they place their trust in and when it comes to the media we should tread softly.

Vitamin B12 cannot be occurred

In addition, were have rising cases of media, companies both insurance and pharmaceutical companies which have begun campaigning against the use of vitamin B12 supplements and some of these cases have mislead the public making them to believe that supplementation is dangerous. It should be noted that Vitamin B12 cannot be occurred. It will not be fair to judge the media houses for publicizing this issue but the pharmaceutical companies stand to gain a lot from this misinformation. Studies that paint a negative picture about supplementation especially vitamin B12 are continuing to increase and one of them was by Kaiser permanente center for Health and Research. In their study they came to a conclusion that use of vitamin B12 does not help to reduce the chances of getting cancer or occurrence of heart diseases. This research was published by the media when the truth is that it has not been scientifically proven how vitamins and other minerals work in the body meaning that this research was not true. In fact by saying that vitamin B12 is not important is bad for nutrition which is a bad message to be sending to people. people also depend on these supplements to fill gaps in their diets and instead of people being discourage to take these supplements they should be encourage especially those suffering from a deficiency in vitamin B12.

So why are reports like these being publicized? The reason is very simple pharmaceutical companies do not want people to depend on the vitaminB12 supplements by bring in negative and false information about the supplements to ensure that people are not of good health there by increasing the demands for drugs and vaccines which is good for business. By so doing will see to it that more people buy drugs which will increase their profits. There are several other cases where people or specialists come with their own facts which have not been proven scientifically like a magic pill which melts off fats from people’s bodies and at a record time. They will also convince people to kiss more because kissing helps in burning calories therefore they can skip the gym.

These individuals convert pretty falsehoods so that they can profit from them. A good example is cholesterol in egg yolks can clog the arteries. This has been giving eggs a bad rap which is not good considering how good eggs are for people. To make it worse some dietitians and specialists still believe in this myth and this is due to the fact that they using old nutrition research. No association was found between egg consumption and stroke and coronary heart diseases. Another myth is that saturated fat in butter and red meat clogs the heart. This myth is very common around the world making people believe that saturated fat leads to heart disease. Saturated fat is known to affect cholesterol in that it leads to increase in HDL cholesterol which is good. No evidence has been found linking saturated fat to heart diseases and this is from an analysis that was conducted by ‘American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Chan et al., 2016). In conclusion, it is now time for people to set their facts straight and not just to believe what the media says when it comes to the best nutrition. Let be very keen with what the media brings to us as the best health and nutrition steps to take because some of these information are not true or scientifically proven

References

Abdulmanea, A. A., Alsaeed, A. H., Shaik, A. P., & AlGahtani, F. H. (2014). Prevalence of pernicious anemia in patients with macrocytic anemia and low serum B12. Pakistan journal of medical sciences, 30(6), 1218.

Chan, C. Q. H., Low, L. L., & Lee, K. H. (2016). Oral Vitamin B12 Replacement for the Treatment of Pernicious Anemia. Frontiers in medicine, 3, 38.

Ontario, H. Q. (2013). Vitamin B12 and cognitive function: an evidence-based analysis. Ont Health Technol Assess Ser, 13(23), 1-45.

Rizzo, G., Laganà, A. S., Rapisarda, A. M. C., La Ferrera, G. M. G., Buscema, M., Rossetti, P., … & Sarpietro, G. (2016). Vitamin B12 among vegetarians: status, assessment and supplementation. Nutrients, 8(12), 767.

Tasdemir, S., & Ulas, U. (2015). Vitamin B12 and cognitive decline. Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology, 18(4).